


free

by hipgrab (merrymegtargaryen)



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Qi'ra is Rey's Mom, no I don't actually believe it but wouldn't it be cool?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 04:03:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14866244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/pseuds/hipgrab
Summary: Qi'ra has never been free. Her baby will be.





	free

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I just want to say that I do not actually subscribe to the theory that Qi'ra and Maul are Rey's parents. I really like that Rey's parents are no one. I just thought it would be a cool idea to explore. 
> 
> I also do ship Maul and Qi'ra, but I wanted to go dark with this, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> HUGE thank you to reyofdarkness for betaing!!

Qi’ra is not Force sensitive. She understands the Force and its workings as well as a non-Force sensitive person can, but she is not a conduit for its power the way Maul is. She cannot sense someone’s presence the way her lover can.

So how she suddenly know that there’s a new life growing inside her as surely and as unquestionably as she knows that her name is Qi’ra, she’ll never understand. But she does, is the thing. One minute she’s crossing her room to pick out clothes for the day and the next she’s aware of a tiny, almost microscopic presence inside of her. She knows, instinctively, that it’s her baby. And she knows, too, that everything is about to change.

Not for the better, either. She’s earned a certain amount of freedom over the years, both from proving herself a loyal captain and from her willingness to be Maul’s lover. She’s followed him into exile, has braved the odds to remain at his side. Such devotion does not go unrewarded.

A child will throw all of that away. If Maul finds out that Qi’ra is pregnant with his child, his  _ heir _ , she will never know freedom again. He will keep her closely monitored, anxious for the life of the next Darkbrother or Darksister. And their child…

_ Their child _ . 

Their child will have no freedom. They’ll think they do; they’ll believe, like so many others, that the Dark Side frees them. But you’re only free if you’re allowed to walk away, and that is something they will never be allowed.

.

She leaves him at the first chance she gets. She knows that if she can sense her child’s presence, he will be able to, too. 

She leaves under the pretense of meeting with associates in the Unknown Regions. Maul accepts it, because they have many associates in the Unknown Regions and because he believes Qi’ra has no reason to lie to him. 

Initially, she plans to have an abortion. Get rid of the thing, spend a few days recovering, and then head back to Maul and pretend nothing ever happened. He’s taught her to put up defenses in her mind so that other Force users can’t read her thoughts; she can use them on him if need be.

She finds a discreet clinic off the Sea of Cantonica, one where wealthy people go to remove unwanted pregnancies and then spend a week or so relaxing until they’re ready to rejoin the rest of the galaxy. She can always change her story, tell Maul that the associate she was trying to reach was at Canto Bight and she had to make some last minute changes to her schedule. She doubts Maul will even care enough to ask. 

She’s waiting to take the shuttle to the clinic when she sees a mother and her daughter. The little girl is cute, all gap-toothed grins and chubby cheeks, and Qi’ra can’t help a soft smile as the mother tucks her into her side and starts reading to her. 

It isn’t that Qi’ra imagines herself tucking a little girl into her side and reading to her. It isn’t that Qi’ra imagines holding a baby and singing lullabies. It isn’t that Qi’ra envisions any kind of future  _ with _ her child. It’s that she imagines creating a future  _ for _ this child. She imagines a child who will have the freedom Qi’ra has never had. 

It’s pure sentimentality, she knows. Keeping this child will bring her nothing but trouble, whereas an abortion will be quick and easy. Someday, she might even be able to mention it to Maul, long after her childbearing years have passed and his strength begins to fade. Maybe he’d just sigh and say, “I understand.”

_ That _ is sentimentality. Maul would kill her, even if it killed him to do it. He’d never forgive her for depriving him of an heir. And if she’s going to give him a reason to kill her, well, she might as well go all the way. 

She books a room at Canto Bight and spends days just wandering the resort. During the days of the Empire, she’d been a well-known guest here; now, there are only a few who remember her, and not always favorably. She likes the anonymity, though--she’s just another pretty face in the crowd. 

She gambles, which has never been her strong spot, but when she plays the part of the ditzy divorcée and goes up against trillionaires who are drunk off champagne and their own ego, she scores more than a few credits. 

When she’s had enough of Canto Bight, she boards her ship and heads for Hanna City. She tells Maul as much, knowing that the galaxy’s capital is a better hiding place than most; it’s so heavily populated and secured that he would only risk coming there if it was of the gravest importance. He won’t find her here. 

Chandrila is a peaceful planet. It’s all calm seas and rolling hills, a planet well cared for by those who inhabit it. Chandrilans value education and intellectual stimulation, a trait Qi’ra once found pedantic and a little irritating. Now, she thinks what a difference such a life would have had on her. Corellia is a broken industrial planet, and the only education anyone has or needs is learned on the streets. Qi’ra vaguely remembers a formal school of some sort, one she’d attended before the Republic fell to the Empire; after that, there hadn’t been much need for school. Her child could go to some of the best schools in the galaxy and grow up on a planet full of fresh air and clean water. 

She could always hire private tutors. She could take her child with her on her travels. She didn’t leave Corellia until she was nineteen--imagine growing up all over the galaxy. 

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen to you,” she says to her belly one night, curled up on her hotel bed. “I don’t even know if we’ll be together. But I promise that I will do everything I can to protect you.” 

She only hopes that everything she can do is enough.

.

She’s about four months along when she sees him.

Han.

It’s been, what, twenty five years? A lifetime ago. He’s older but no less handsome; there’s a fullness to his face that wasn’t there before. She imagines being a war hero and husband to a Senator-Princess will do that to you.

She hadn’t had time to process it when she first found out. There had been so much to do, so many plans to lay--hearing that her old friend had married the princess of a destroyed planet had been the least of her worries. She’s glad for him now, though. Glad, and a little melancholy. She thinks she’ll always be a little melancholy when she thinks of Han.

He’s in the same hangar as her ship, shouting something up the ramp of the  _ Millennium Falcon _ .

“What have you done to Lando’s ship?”

The look on his face is...precious. His mouth falls open and his eyes go comically wide. He recovers in a snap, giving her a grin that’s supposed to be charming. “I won it from him fair and square.”

“Hmm.” Her smile is so big it threatens to split her face. “What happened to it?”

“Oh, you know--a little of this, a little of that.” He tugs off the gloves he’s been wearing. 

“You should be more careful--I hear that’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs.”

They smile at each other for a long moment. 

“How’ve you been?” he asks at last, voice soft.

Her hands flutter towards her stomach, but she forces them down to her sides at the last minute. Admitting she’s pregnant will invite questions she isn’t ready to give the answer to. “I’ve been okay,” she says honestly. “What about you...General Solo, am I right?”

A flush crosses his face. “You heard.”

“The entire galaxy heard,” she laughs. “General Solo, Hero of the Rebellion.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, and he’s saying something else when a voice rings out from inside the  _ Falcon _ .

“Dad!” 

They both turn to look as a boy stomps down the ship’s ramp. He can’t be more than eight or nine, his pale face narrow and almost completely devoid of baby fat. He looks almost nothing like Han, especially given the mop of thick black hair on top of his head, but when he looks at Qi’ra she sees it--the flicker of a face she knew a long time ago. 

“This is my son,” Han says, wrapping a long arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Ben.”

Ben. Han. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Ben,” she says politely. It occurs to her that she can’t remember the last time she spoke to a child. 

Ben says nothing, only gazes up at her with narrow, serious eyes. 

“He’s shy,” Han says, jostling the boy. 

Ben’s cheeks turn red. “Dad,” he mumbles. “Mom…”

Han gives him another shake, one that deepens the red in the boy’s cheeks. “Yeah, we’re going.” He throws an apologetic look at Qi’ra. “We just got back, Leia’s...waiting for us.”

“Of course,” she says at once. “It was good to see you, Han.”

“Yeah,” he says softly. “It was good to see you too.” 

They just...look at each other for a long moment, all the things that have gone unsaid and now never will be filling the air between them. Qi’ra is the one to break it, smiling down at Ben. “It was nice meeting you, Ben.”

His eyes, she’s perturbed to see, are fixed on her stomach. He lifts them slowly to hers, looking as if he knows something she doesn’t. Maybe, she thinks with a sense of unease, he does.

She walks briskly to where her ship is docked, forcing herself not to look over her shoulder. That’s one of the lessons Dryden Vos taught her so long ago.

“Never look back,” he’d said to her once. “If you do, you will never move forward.”

In the morning, she leaves Chandrila.

.

She bounces around from system to system in the intervening months. Maul’s calm indifference shifts into curiosity. 

“Just following a trail,” she tells him when he asks. “I don’t know where it’s headed.”

She closes off her mind during their brief exchanges over commlink, pushing all thoughts of the baby deep down where he cannot read them. When she cannot avoid speaking to him via holo, she makes sure he can only see her from the chest up, loath to reveal her rapidly swelling belly. He’s curious, but only curious. Not concerned or angry. Not yet, anyway.

Bouncing between star systems becomes harder. Everything becomes harder. She’s always been lithe, but her center of gravity shifts to her stomach and her body never seems to quite adjust. She doesn’t walk anymore, she  _ waddles _ , and everything is suddenly exhausting. She spends hours just lying on her bed, wincing every time her baby kicks.

“Athletic, are you?” she mumbles a little resentfully, but a little proud, too. 

She debates for a while whether she should have a doctor look at her. Doctors keep records, and if she were to find a doctor who recognized her and sympathized with those who might have it out for her, that could be dangerous. Still more dangerous would be a doctor who knew her connection to Maul. 

Ultimately, she decides that that’s highly unlikely, and if there’s something wrong with the baby, some life-threatening defect, she wants to know.

She finds a doctor on a remote backwater planet. The woman doesn’t ask Qi’ra any more questions than are necessary--when was her last period, has there been any pain, any bleeding. The last question she asks is if Qi’ra’s in any danger. 

“None that I can’t handle,” she teases.

The doctor does not look amused.

The other woman pulls up an ultrasound of the baby. The holo isn’t entirely clear, and every shape seems to meld into the next, but then it shifts and Qi’ra suddenly sees a baby. She sees the head and arms, tiny fingers and tiny toes. 

“No abnormalities...heart is beating normally...overall I’d say you’ve got a healthy little girl.”

“Girl?” Qi’ra repeats breathlessly. 

“Girl,” the doctor says, voice softening. “And from the looks of things you won’t have long to meet her.” 

Qi’ra can’t take her eyes off the holo of her little girl. That, right there, is a person. A person she has yet to meet, separated from her by her own body. Isn’t that funny? 

The doctor gives her a list of resources—safe places to deliver, what to do in the event of an emergency. Qi’ra only barely manages to pay attention. The doctor gives her a holochip; when Qi’ra plays it later, on her ship, she sees that it’s a recording of the ultrasound. She plugs it in by her bed and spends hours just watching the ultrasound and rubbing her belly. 

.

It’s late, that greenish lull between night and morning, when she feels something probing at her mind. She brushes it away, still hazy with sleep, but then it occurs to her that this probe could only come from one person.

_ Maul _ .

Her eyes fly open. She’s alone on this ship, but she feels oddly like she’s being watched. His curiosity, she thinks, has finally shifted into something else. 

She keeps up the defenses in her mind. It occurs to her that, since he was the one who taught her to build those defenses in the first place, he might be able to tear them down.

But nothing happens. She doesn’t feel anymore probes, he doesn’t contact her, her ship doesn’t get boarded or blown up. Everything is fine.

For now.

.

She’s making the jump to hyperspeed after leaving Cato Neimoidia when the first spasm hits her. She knows that expectant mothers have false alarms in the days leading up to labor, so she doesn’t panic. Yet. She instead gets a heat pack and lies down in bed, breathing deeply through the spasms. 

They don’t go away. If anything, they only come faster and stronger, and Qi’ra is forced to come to the conclusion that early or not, this baby is on the way. She pulls up the list of safe places to deliver that the doctor gave her, but none of them are easily accessible and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to pilot a ship with contractions hitting her every four minutes. 

She could send out a distress signal. Alert the nearest ship with a med droid that she’s going into labor alone. They might even be able to get her to a facility in time.

But Qi’ra knows with a pang that has nothing to do with her contractions how unlikely that is, not to mention dangerous; slim though it may be, there is always the possibility that someone will recognize her, that the authorities will figure out who she is and apprehend her. A slim chance, yes, but one she can’t afford to take. 

“Okay,” she says aloud, because talking to herself will be better, she thinks, than no talking at all. “I can do this. I can do this.”

She does it, but only just. There are no how-to guides for giving birth when you’re on your own, but she does find some “here’s what to do while you’re waiting for help” tidbits. They tell her not to walk because that will speed the baby’s arrival--so Qi’ra walks all over her ship, leaning heavily on the walls whenever a contraction hits her. The pain is unlike anything she’s ever experienced, so strong that it leaves her numb. When she can’t bring herself to walk anymore, she gets on her hands and knees or sits up against the wall. 

It’s been  _ hours _ , half a Corellian sun cycle at least, when she feels it. It’s now, she knows, some primal instinct that tells her the labor is almost over. She half-crawls to the refresher, logic fighting through the haze of pain to tell her that it will be easier to clean. 

She sits up against the cold tile wall, drawing her knees up to her shoulders and pushing with all her might. 

She sees the head, and then the baby’s red, wrinkled face. She reaches down, cupping the baby’s head as her small body slips out from Qi’ra. 

She’s whimpering, her eyes half-blind from sweat and tears, but everything becomes suddenly clear when she looks into her daughter’s face. 

_ Her daughter _ . 

She’s a tiny thing, wet and wriggling. Definitely human. Not a trace of Zabrak on her. As soon as she’s fully out she opens her lips and  _ screams _ . 

“I know,” Qi’ra says soothingly, even though she’d been the one screaming just seconds ago. “I know, I know, don’t worry, I’ve got you.” She continues a chant of senseless, soothing words as she gingerly sets her daughter on her lap and cuts the umbilical cord. As soon as it’s done, she scoops up the little one and gathers her against her chest. The baby’s cries taper off into little hiccupy noises as she seeks her mother’s warmth. 

“That’s right,” Qi’ra murmurs. “You’re safe and warm here, don’t you worry about a thing, little one.” 

The baby doesn’t seem distressed anymore, but Qi’ra still coos and hums, kissing the little face. For the first time in her life, she thinks she might love someone. 

.

Later, after she’s cleaned them both up and soothed her little girl with songs and kisses, after she’s lying on her bunk, her body curled around the baby as they both get some much-needed sleep, Qi’ra feels something. Her mind is still sluggish from her nine hour labor so she only shakes her head and tries to settle deeper into unconsciousness, but then…

_ No _

_ Nonono _

She startles awake, so quickly and so harshly that it wakes the baby. Her daughter screams as Qi’ra tries, desperately and without success, to push Maul from her mind.

But it’s too late. He’s seen the baby in her mind, knows that she’s spent these last few months hiding their daughter,  _ his heir _ , from him. 

Qi’ra manages to shield her mind at last, at long last. She can sense the remnant of Maul in her mind, can feel his anger. “Don’t worry,” she tells her baby, sitting up to rock the little one. “I won’t let him get you. You’re safe, I’ve got you, don’t worry.”  _ I’m doing enough of it for the both of us. _

.

The next few days are hell. Qi’ra is sore all over, and if she isn’t bleeding from between her legs then her breasts are fit to burst with milk. She desperately needs sleep, but she knows that sleep is the easiest way for Maul to intrude her mind again--and this time, he might find out where exactly she is. 

While she has the baby at her breast, she pulls up the nav system. Maul will come for her, and there’s no way she’ll let their daughter be there when it happens. She has to find someplace to hide the baby, and then…

And then she’ll have to face him. 

She’s in the Western Reaches, somewhere between the Inner Rim and the Unknown Regions. The Unknown Regions are more remote, which is ideal for a hiding place, but Maul is probably lurking in that area--and if not Maul, then those who are in contact with him. So that’s a no. The Inner Rim is safer because it’s more heavily populated and Maul likes to lay low, but the heavy population also means more of his spies would find her. She thinks, fleetingly, of crossing the Core to Corellia, but then she dismisses that notion--there is no way she’s leaving her daughter there. 

She runs through the star systems nearby and pauses when she sees one.

Jakku.

The name is vaguely familiar. Something to do with the Rebellion, she thinks. It’s a desert planet, it looks like. Not much life by the sounds of it. She finds an image of Niima Outpost, a sorry collection of scrap metal. There are a few villages dotted here and there, but no real towns and definitely no cities. It’s little more than a rock, something that will be beneath even Maul’s notice. 

“I know it’s nowhere,” she murmurs to the baby. “But it won’t be for long.” 

She only hopes that she’s right.

.

Her baby is five days old when they land on Jakku. Qi’ra still doesn’t have a name for her. Maybe that’s for the best. 

The desert planet is unforgiving. Qi’ra’s been shuffling around on a small ship for the past few days, and walking on the sand exhausts her aching body more than she anticipated. She keeps the baby wrapped securely against her chest, pulling a blanket up over her so she won’t get sand in her face.

She’s landed not far from a settlement that she soon learns is called Cratertown. There are children here, she’s relieved to see, but not many. 

There appears to be only one bar in the town. Qi’ra heads there, because in her experience, you can always find what you’re looking for in a bar--as long as you ask the right questions. 

The people in the bar regard her curiously. She has a feeling there are few strangers on this planet. Sure enough, she’s no sooner seated herself than the bartender asks, “You lost, lady?”

“I wonder,” she says softly, “if you know of someone who could help me.”

The bartender raises an eyebrow. “You in some kind of trouble?”

“Of a kind,” she says lightly. She pulls aside the blanket, revealing the baby’s face. “I need to hide her. Just for a little while.” 

The bartender grunts. “Well, if her daddy’s off-planet, I can tell you this is probably the best hiding place there is.”

She doesn’t ask how he knew it was the father she was hiding from. She just nods. “I hoped as much. Do you...know of anyone? Who could take in a newborn? Just for a little while,” she says again. 

The bartender goes to refill someone’s glass. When he comes back, he says, “Couple in the corner. Ry and Keela. Buried a little one not long ago. Could be what you’re looking for.” 

Ry and Keela are exactly what she’s looking for. They buried a baby girl just a few months ago and still have her things. They agree to take in Qi’ra’s baby for as long as she needs, an agreement ensured by the generous amount of credits Qi’ra provides.

“What’s her name?” Keela asks, peering down into the little face.

Qi’ra looks at her daughter’s face too. “Rey,” she says for some reason. “Her name is Rey.”

.

Qi’ra waits until she’s in hyerspace before comming Maul. She clears Rey from her mind and focuses instead on her lover. 

Her enemy.

“Hello, Qi’ra,” he says with sinister pleasure. 

“Send me your coordinates,” she says in her most neutral voice. “I’ll come to you.”

“Good. We have much to discuss.”

.

They don’t discuss anything. Qi’ra doesn’t give him the chance. Before he can ask her where their daughter is, before he can  _ make _ her tell him (and she knows he would), she attacks. 

It happens so quickly. He’s taught her everything he knows, and though he has the physical advantage of not just having given birth and also the Force, Qi’ra has something just as strong. She has, for once in her life, something to die for, something that’s more important than her own skin. 

It ends in a flash, a glint of red light off the silver of her blade just before she buries it in his heart. Her triumph is short-lived--all of a second--before there’s an excruciating burning in her stomach, like nothing she’s ever felt before. It’s red and angry and humming, and she knows without even looking down that this is the end. 

She’s the first to collapse, stumbling back and off of the lightsaber before falling on the floor. Maul opens his mouth to say something, but only blood spills out of his mouth. His eyes turn glassy just before he falls, her knife still buried in his chest.

Qi’ra stares up at the ceiling, in so much pain she cannot find her breath. 

Rey.

She’ll be all right on Jakku. There will be no blood tests, no way to connect her to her parents. Her real parents. Ry and Keela are her parents now. They buried one little girl, why not have Qi’ra’s? 

It’s better this way. They wanted a little girl. Rey can be their second chance. Rey will never have to know who her parents were and the horrible things they did to survive. 

Rey will be free. 

And that, Qi’ra thinks with her last breath, makes all of this worth it.

  
  



End file.
